Hitherto, it has been problematic to determine with any confidence the source of the apparently Irish surname Moeran. Exhaustive searches of archives in Ireland and elsewhere have located just one spurious reference that may be dated to any point earlier than the first decade of the nineteenth century. A speculative legend promulgated by the present day Moeran family that the name was brought to Ireland as a corruption of the Huguenot de Meuran (or de Meuron) by exiles from Cardinal Richelieu during the seventeenth century lacks any supporting evidence. Similarly, an account that the name came from Brittany during the late eighteenth century as the result of the travels of an itinerant (and possibly Dutch) musician and swordsman named Moeran is also unsupported. Furthermore, transliteration of the German or Swedish surname Möran seems to be very unlikely. The first mention of anybody named Moeran in any source in the British Isles located thus far is dated March 1808, and it may reasonably be supposed that the name appeared at about that date.

A newspaper report of the death of one Edward Moeran at the age of eighty-four on 17 February 1865 in Cork suggests that a Moeran family may have been living in the city for some time, and it would seem reasonable to believe that this was also the case when Edward was born in about 1780. However, as suggested above, Edward Moeran can be traced back only to March 1808: ‘MARRIED: Last Saturday, Mr Edward Moeran, to Miss Busteed.’ While Edward Moeran is mentioned in an abundance of newspaper reports from that date until the report of his death in 1865, there is no reference to his birth or childhood. A clue to resolving the mystery of Edward's identity is provided by an earlier marriage announcement in November 1802: ‘MARRIED – Last Tuesday morning, at St Finn Barre's by the Rev. Henry Sandiford, Mr EDWARD MORAN, Professor of Music, to Miss NESBITT.’ While this may at first sight be coincidence, the many newspaper references between 1808 and 1865 to Edward Moeran as a musician, and the lack of any further mention of Edward Moran, suggest compellingly that Moran and Moeran were one and the same, his marriage to Margaret Busteed having been made possible by the death of Helena Nesbitt.